The climate remains tense between the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS) and the Macron government.
Latest standoff to date: the civil service law of August 6, 2019, which must come into force on January 1.
This text puts an end to the derogatory regimes for the legal duration of working time in local communities.
By the end of the year, all the communities including the town hall of Paris must get into the nails and regularize the working time of their agents, by aligning themselves with the legal regime of 1,607 hours of annual work.
Work 55 hours more, or eight days
That is 55 hours more than the Parisian regime currently applied.
The equivalent of 8 additional working days per year.
Enough to bring back the 52,776 civil servants and contractors in the municipality.
To pass this big pill, the City of Paris must find an agreement with the inter-union by July, when the Council of Paris must adopt the new framework on working time.
Too short a deadline in the eyes of the mayor of Paris.
Have the municipal elections also "delayed" the negotiations?
Mystery.
"We condemn the spirit of this law, which we consider to be against progress historically oriented towards the reduction of working time", keeps repeating Antoine Guillou, the deputy in charge of human resources at the city of Paris.
In the absence of being able to avoid it, Anne Hidalgo's deputy requested a three-month delay at the beginning of April in a letter addressed to the Minister, arguing in particular that the health crisis "makes social dialogue more complex on such an important and dense subject ”, and that the new reconfinement decided at the end of March aggravated this difficulty“ once again ”.
Enough to leave time to continue discussions with the trade unions, which still refuse the prospect of an increase in working time.
A strike in mid-May?
After having already mobilized officials on several occasions, the inter-union (CFTC, CGT, FO, Supap-FSU, UCP and Unsa of the City of Paris) calls for a week of action and strike from May 17 to 21, and at a demonstration on May 20. “It's good that the City has asked for a delay, but as early as last September, we asked Antoine Guillou to open negotiations on working time. However, the first meetings on the subject only took place in January ”, underlines Patrick Leman, secretary general of Unsa.
In a letter addressed today to the City of Paris - which we have obtained - the Minister of Public Service Amélie de Montchalin, does not hesitate to lecture the City of Paris on this delay in the negotiations.
“The municipalities and public establishments for inter-municipal cooperation had two and a half years from the promulgation of the law.
I observe that this process has been initiated in most of the local authorities concerned, and it is, for a majority of them, completed or in the process of being very soon, ”underlines Amélie de Montchalin.
A new showdown Montchalin - Hidalgo
The minister had already had tense exchanges with Anne Hidalgo when the City had received, in December, an administrative fine of 90,000 euros for having appointed too many women to management positions in 2018. A provision that the Minister herself had judged "Absurd" and which was finally canceled at the beginning of the year.
Amélie de Montchalin will ask the prefect of the Ile-de-France region to study the City's postponement request for the adoption of its deliberation, but she insists: "This law applies to everyone and everyone must strive to implement it, by freeing itself from political polemics. ”
This Thursday, the City of Paris refuses to comment on a letter that it has not yet received.